Monday, February 28, 2011

The brutal cold temperatures this winter in Santa Fe have suddenly ceased, and with the warmth of sunny days comes the renewed energy of spring with grass pushing up and crocuses daring to bloom and my upcoming CA trip full of new interviews and book appearances and readings.

Lust for Justice is now being distributed by PartnersWest so request that your local bookstore order copies. The legs of this book is traveling the globe with good reports coming in from everywhere. It continues to hold its own on Kindle's Hot New Releases in the category of Lawyers and Judges with 5 star reviews.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Spring is in the air and bursting with events. Lot's going on! I'm doing a fundraiser with Tony Serra for KPFA in Berkeley, CA on March 6th. In addition, we're going to be at The Book Passage in Corte Madera: 51 Tamal Vista Blvd, Corte Madera at 4PM, then at 7PM at The Green Arcade Bookstore: 1680 Market St., San Francisco. 415-431 6800.

Tony Serra is a living embodiment of the anti-establishment hero. After graduating from UC Berkeley's Boalt School of Law in 1961, he began his career as a deputy district attorney for Alameda County. Rapidly disillusioned with the justice system, he became a private defense lawyer and has since become notorious for representing - and winning - cases on behalf of the downtrodden: drug dealers, Hell's Angels, Black Panthers, even the Symbionese Liberation Army. His defense of a Korean man wrongfully convicted in a Chinatown gang murder inspired the film 'True Believer.' Ever the bohemian, Serra owns no property and doesn't have a checking account. He takes most cases for free.

The Trial Lawyers College seminar in Big Sur was ASTOUNDING! All my weeks of white-knuckle worry and pre-meditated piss off that Tony Serra would be a no-how, dissolved at the sight of his big smiling face. He came through big time, in spite of the rain, in spite of the night and dangerous roads, in spite of the distance, in spite of his concerns about driving at night in his old klunker car with no tail light, in spite of being in the thrust of a triple-murder trial in Oakland — he showed up!!! There IS a God! Prayers ARE answered. He was beautiful. He gave of himself generously and whole-heartedly — for FIVE HOURS!!!! Then he was going to drive back again, all that long way back from the Sur to San Francisco but by that time it was midnight, raining hard and out of the question to do so. So he stayed over and left by dawn’s early light. Every one loved him. He was the rave of the 4-day seminar. People said it was the best seminar EVER in 15 years, and all because of Tony. I was so proud of him!

I sold a lot of books and prints of my courtroom art. Good things were said about the book, like, “It changed my life! You humanized this giant of the courtroom and I got the feeling ‘I too can be someone like that. I CAN DO THIS! This book gave me hope!” Another was, “I devoured this book! Couldn’t stop reading it. I liked the way you wove in the trials and the legalese with your own vignettes. It’s beautifully done.” Another was, “The language was so readable. It’s not dry and boring like most books about lawyers and the law. This one has LIFE to it! It has a heart!.” It was just tearful to hear it from so many sources, all of them LAWYERS!

All-in-all, the moral of this story is, you’ve got to go through that wall of fear to break through to the other side, and that’s where all the good stuff is just waiting to be embraced. AHHHHHHHH! It was just GRAND!

I returned to record temps of minus 15 degrees in Santa Fe! I was not dressed for that. I just wore everything I had all at once, like Russian immigrants do. It was steamy hot sufferance at the plane change in LAX but barely enough warmth for arrival at the airport in ABQ, waiting outside for the shuttle to the parking lot. And then, Home again, Home again, all smiles and inner glow and a fist full of money from my blessed book. It’s been a long hard haul, but moments like this make it all worthwhile.